Where did you start your career?
I started my career producing conferences, and then moved to building a social network and online magazine for contact centers. At this social network I had a podcast show, a blog, and I was an early thought leader on contact centers. I remember my boss telling me that now I was a “brand,” which at the time seemed really strange to me. Now I get it. That was almost ten years ago. I enjoyed studying contact centers, and worked at Intel as a social customer service leader. However after having two years of customer service practitioner experience under my belt I realized I preferred customer experience which included more branding, consumer behavior and more. I decided to focus 100 percent on customer experience thought leadership – speaking at events, writing a book “More Is More,” and even teaching an executive education at Rutgers Business School this August. I will also be keynoting the Genesys conference for 500 people in Australia this summer.

What inspired you to write the book More Is More?
I always wanted to write a book – while books don’t make any money these days, it does level up your career. If you want to be a thought leader, having a book is very helpful.

What is your book about?
I wrote a book about hard work called “More Is More” as I mentioned. Meaning? Not much differentiates us as individuals. Plenty of people have the goods – they’re smart, even talented. But not everyone wakes out of bed ready to run. It’s those that jump out of bed ready to run that end up successful. Others, who don’t have that internal maniac – who seem asleep all day, will let the less smart, less talented competitor win. It’s the same with companies. Companies today need to work harder. They don’t need to be the smartest or most talented. But they need to consistently jump out of bed ready to serve. Why? Products and services are largely the same. Airline, gym, grocery store…pretty much all the same. Companies that will go to any length to make their customer’s life easier and better will ultimately attract more customers. And it’s not even so much as how many hours you work…it’s the consistent focus. The “jumping out of bed” every single morning, ready to serve someone.

How can it help readers?
Often no one person within a company owns customer experience – and that’s how it should be. The CEO can lead it, but everyone within the company should be focused on customer experience. That said, my book is for anyone who wants a simple explanation of customer experience and the many ways it can improve their job, their company and their market share.

What’s the future of customer experience?
In the future we will use technologies to fix many of the common customer frustrations we see today. Technology can fix the mundane customer issues so companies can focus on high touch customer experiences. When people tell me they’re afraid of the looming AI revolution, I wonder if they enjoy the many ways customer experiences are inefficient today. For example I want to ask them, do you enjoy waiting in line at the DMV? Passport control? Do you enjoy doing paperwork for insurance, healthcare etc? There is much opportunity to improve the efficiency of our world and that’s not a bad or scary thing. We need thoughtful, conscientious people leading technology strategies – and that way we can ensure we won’t have a robot take-over, but leverage technology to make people’s lives easier and better.

Blake Morgan is a Customer Experience Futurist. Her first book is “More is More: How The Best Companies Work Harder And Go Farther To Create Knock Your Socks Off Customer Experiences.” Blake is adjunct faculty at the Rutgers executive education MBA program. Blake contributes to Forbes, the Harvard Business Review and the American Marketing Association. She is the host of The Modern Customer Podcast and a weekly customer experience video series on YouTube. She’s been ranked as ICMI’s Top 50 Thought Leaders To Follow on Twitter In 2016, Clarabridge’s #1 Social Customer Service expert to follow and Customer Gauge’s top 20 customer experience experts in follow in 2017. She has worked with Intel, Verizon Wireless, and many more. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband, daughter and their two Yorkie rescues.

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Your most important assets are not your customers and your employees. It’s how your customers and your employees feel about your company. Your success as a customer service manager is directly proportional to your ability to drive simultaneously customer satisfaction and employee engagement. Happy employees are inclined to go above and beyond for your customers. And when your customers feel they are cared for, they will return. You can’t satisfy customers with disengaged employees. Start there first. So what can you do to ensure your employees are engaged? As a first step, begin by asking at least one employee these two questions every day:

What are you hearing? You cannot even begin to satisfy customers until you remove all the potential dissatisfiers within the customer experience. The American Customer Satisfaction Index found that the response rates for electronic surveys were averaging between 5% and 15% . So if surveys are your only source of feedback, then at the most, you personally know 15% of all your customers’ angst. If you are interacting with customers while you supervise employees, you may know between 20 – 50% of your customers’ dissatisfiers. But your Associates know 100% of your customers complaints and concerns because your customers tell them everyday. So find out what they are hearing and act to systematically remove any potential dissatisfiers.

What can I do for you? Jan Carlzon, former CEO of SAS Airlines and author of the book, Moments of Truth said, “If you’re not serving the customer, your job is to be serving someone who is.” To serve the customer, your employees need the empowerment, tools and resources to take care of their customers. Without the tools and resources, they will not feel empowered to solve customer complaints or respond to customer questions. As much as you want your employees to fulfill your customers’ needs, you need to serve your employees to fulfill theirs. So at the end of every employee conversation, whether it is a group setting or a one-to-one conversation, ask, “What can I do for you?” Listen and then act on their suggestions. Seriously weigh every suggestion, no matter how small you might think it might be. If they mentioned it to you, it is a BIG DEAL to them. Otherwise they wouldn’t have said anything. And if it’s a BIG DEAL to them, it should be a BIG DEAL to you. Whether you are able to implement their suggestion or not, always personally get back promptly to the individual employee who offered the suggestion. It will reinforce their perception that you are committed to their success, as much as you are to your customers’ satisfaction.

The biggest complaint from employees of their managers and supervisors is a lack of communication. Ask these two questions every day to generate a flow of ideas to continually improve the employee and customer experience. Then act on the feedback you receive to drive engagement and empower your employees to deliver exceptional service that your customers will rave about to you and others.

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This week’s post is from Swiftpage CEO John Oechsle. He examines the evolution of how organizations connect with their customers and how smaller and midsized businesses are finding ways to compete for customers with larger players in their space through the 4 C’s of customer information. Swiftpage is the owner of Act!, the first to market customer relationship management software solution that pioneered the space 30 years ago and is still innovating today, so he has a bit of a unique perspective on how customer communication has evolved and where it’s heading. You can learn more about John and his company at the end of his post.

Walkmen were all the rage, cell phones were the size of eggplants, and Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody was the No. 1 hit. The year was 1987, a time when technology was advancing at a tremendous pace. Just imagine—in four more years, some Americans would begin communicating via SMS text.

Enter 2017. Driverless cars are cruising the streets, and high school students are Skyping with astronauts in space. New technologies are shaping the world around us, and small businesses have a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on these advancements. This is especially true with customer relationship management (CRM), an area that businesses were smart to pay attention to 30 years ago in 1987—and can no longer afford to ignore in today’s competitive environment.

As the technological complexity of customer relationships evolve, so must our approaches to them. The area is best tackled through the four C’s of customer information, which are crucial components of any business plan. Currency, correctness, consistency and completeness are – and, arguably, have always been – the most effective path toward forging intimate, long-term relationships with customers.

Currency and correctness

Currency and correctness go together like the PC and mouse. After all, data only has value when it’s up-to-date and accurate. While the Internet makes it easy to link up with others, it’s important to ensure connections are managed properly. Remember, customer information is constantly changing. People move, switch jobs and update email addresses. Social media accounts might be inaccurate or outdated. This all underscores the importance of maintaining current and correct customer information.

If customer information is kept accurately and up to date, it can prove to be invaluable when used with predictive analytics technology. It can help an organization learn a lot about customer trends and who to reach out to for a sale at what time and via which method of contact to give the company the best chance for a successful interaction—giving the business its best chance to retain existing customers while growing by developing new customer relationships as well.

We’ve come a long way since 1987, when the first version of Microsoft Excel was released for Windows. Excel was preceded by programs such as Lotus and VisiCalc, which were used to store customer data and other important company information. Before then, punched cards were a popular way to save information. Oh, and don’t forget the infamous rolodex, the original CRM. It’s truly incredible to think of the advances information management has made in such a short time period.

Consistency

Consistency has always been a hallmark of helping businesses grow. After all, success is impossible if a business can’t maintain positive and long-lasting relationships with its customers. We have infinite options for storing detailed customer information. We use mobile apps, cloud servers, customizable CRM software solutions, email, Google docs, Excel spreadsheets and – gasp –pen and paper when we’re in a pinch! If the customer information is not consistent across all of them, currency and correctness go out the door!

It wasn’t always so simple to store all that information on a computer. Apple’s 1986 enhanced Macintosh computer had limited capacity and could store just 4 MB worth of files. To put that in context, the ’86 Mac had enough space to store about one decent quality mp3 song file today.

Completeness

Completeness is not just about knowing a customer’s address and birthday; it’s an across-the-board collection of customer information aimed at documenting every individual customer interaction. And complete record keeping wasn’t always easy to accomplish through technology. In the late 1980s, computers were only beginning to make their way into mainstream life. By 1989, just 15 percent of U.S. households owned one and customer records were often kept tucked away in filing cabinets.

Today, we’re fortunate to live in an age where we can keep an effortless record of emails, web analytics and online sales with the right technology. We can detail each interaction a customer has with any point of contact at the business, and that information can then be stored and shared so everyone has the same, complete information about the customer’s experience. It’s easy to make notes of face-to-face meetings and phone calls, too, with tools that have been developed for just that purpose—including pioneering software solutions like Act! that were laying the foundation for modern CRM technology all the way back in 1987.

With such effective and reliable technology available at our disposal in 2017, we are wise to take advantage. Bringing the four C’s together gives businesses the ability to mine information, examine trends, and forge lifelong relationships with their customers that enable the business to grow and thrive.

And, at the end of the day, isn’t finding ways to connect and form relationships with our customers what it’s all about—both today and back in 1987?

About the Author

H. John Oechsle joined Swiftpage in July 2012 and currently serves as president and chief executive officer. John came to Swiftpage with a 30-year track record of building highly profitable and sustainable revenue growth for emerging companies and established global leaders. John is an advocate for technology and education in Colorado and has been an active contributor to the Colorado Technology Association (CTA). He has been recognized several times for his involvement in the tech industry. In 2006 and in 2009, John was awarded the Technology Executive of the Year, and the Titan of Technology awards by the CTA. John was also awarded the Bob Newman Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Community by the CTA in 2011.

I am a big fan of Marriott International. With the recent acquisition of Starwood, Marriott is the world’s largest hotel company with over 5700 properties worldwide. If you ask loyal customers and me to describe Marriott in one word, we would respond with “Consistency.” I am convinced that the enviable growth of Marriott is based the focus of its associates to consistently deliver an experience that meets the high expectations of its customers. And that focus was set by founder JW Marriott with this business mantra, “Only close attention to the fine details of any operation makes the operation first class.” Even more succinctly, Teri puts forth in her post that, in any business,”Everything Speaks!”

Imagine visiting a fine dining restaurant for a special occasion. You’ve been looking forward to the meal and you’ve heard good things about the restaurant. Then imagine noticing something crusty on your fork and lipstick marks on your water glass. Wouldn’t you begin wondering about the cleanliness and quality of everything else in the restaurant? Everything Speaks! It’s important to pay attention to the details of the work environment because everything is communicating a message to your customers. Every detail of your physical environment says something about you and your business. Everything the customer sees, hears, smells and touches creates an impression.

Now picture a technician pulling up into a customer’s driveway. The service vehicle is dirty, dusty, missing sign letters and disorganized in appearance. The customer opens the door to greet the technician who smells, shoes are muddy, shirt askew and hands are dirty or greasy. During the application of the service, the technician receives a personal phone call, then stands around and has a cigarette before continuing the job. All this detracts from your business’s image. It both consciously or subconsciously raises the customer’s antennae and makes them question, “Do I really want to spend my money with this company?”

One of the keys to Walt Disney World’s success is meticulous attention to detail. Using the entertainment analogy of “onstage” and “offstage”, cast members are constantly reminded the importance of recognizing they are “onstage” every time they step into a guest area. Just about everything is carefully planned, managed and orchestrated to ensure a positive guest experience. Cast members are responsible for their appearance with the appropriate, clean costume, name tag and fresh-faced look. “Onstage” behaviors do not include smoking, drinking, eating, or cursing. All cast members are responsible to keep up the work area appearance by picking up trash or noting when things need maintenance.

Great memorable service people are the ones who understand the concept of Everything Speaks. I’m talking about…

The pest control technician who took off his shoes and put on cloth slippers before coming into my home.

The insulation rep who worked in my attic in 90 degrees heat, went out to his service van and changed his shirt before coming back in with the bill so he wouldn’t look or smell bad.

The plumber who showed up in his shiny, well-organized truck, clean-shaven and wearing a monogrammed polo shirt and nice trousers. After he finished installing a new garbage disposal on the kitchen sink, he cleaned up the kitchen floor. When I shared my appreciation for his thoughtfulness, he said “I always try to leave a customer’s home looking better than what it was when I came”.

Teri Yanovitch is a speaker, author, facilitator, and consultant. Her passion is helping organizations create a culture of service excellence.

Previously as a keynote speaker with the Disney Institute, she shared exemplary practices of customer service with organizations world-wide. For more than a decade, she facilitated cultural change as an executive with the company that revolutionized total quality management, Philip Crosby Associates. And for the first five years of her career, she trained hundreds of leaders and frontline staff of the Hertz Corporation in the value of the customer experience.

In 1991, she began her own firm, T.A.Yanovitch, Inc. Over the years, Teri has helped many diverse organizations such as; AAA, Marriott, Ernst & Young, Subway, America’s Blood Centers, Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise, First Citizens Banks, Ocwen Financial, and many college and universities to share her combined experience and knowledge of how to offer a customer experience that delights and differentiates one from the competition.

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This week’s blog post is contributed by a very special guest, actually more like a guest star, Nancy Friedman, better known as “The Telephone Doctor.” The author of the recently published book, Customer Service (finally) Defined – Ideas, Tips, techniques & Skills You Can Use Now and Forever, and eight other books, Nancy is simply one of the best keynote speakers on customer service. (Can you tell I’m a big fan?) Named by meeting planners as one of their “favorite speakers” by Meetings and Conventions Magazine, she has a natural gift for entertaining an audience that will engage and inspire every attendee to deliver a better customer experience. Find out more about Nancy and how you can connect with her via her website, email or social media platforms at the end of her post.

Every business has one thing in common. Phone calls. Inbound or outbound; service or sales. How these phones are answered and handled is critical.

New software and hardware is constantly coming into the marketplace and yet, the one thing that remains constant is how these phone are answered, no matter WHO answers it.

Telephone Doctor has a near foolproof plan on improving customer service that will boost your employees moral, and more importantly, your callers will feel they have definitely “called the right place.” By using only a few of these Telephone Doctor tips, you will raise awareness and increase customer satisfaction.

Here goes:

We’ll start with the obvious. SMILE. And be sure you use our Telephone Doctor motto, smile BEFORE you answer the phone. Often times, it’s simply too late to smile after you know who it is. There can be no discrimination when you answer the phone. Everyone gets a smile before you know who it is.

Assure the caller they have “called the right place.” This needs to be said before you ask for any information. It’s very frustrating to be interrogated before you welcome the caller. If you need information, be sure you welcome the caller first.

Be a good listener. Often times, this takes practice. If your mind wanders or you find yourself “not terribly interested” in the call, customer or the caller, you need a good listening course. Listening is an art, NOT a science. It needs to be practiced.

Take notes. Take notes and then take more notes. It’ll also help you become a better listener. By jotting key words as the caller talks, you can refer back to any point in the conversation and the caller thinks you’re a great listener. It can be very dangerous to be on the phone without a pencil and paper. “What did you say” isn’t great customer service. Good note takers become great on the phone.

Use buffers. “BUFFER WORDS” in Telephone Doctor language means the words before the key point. “Good Morning,” “Good Afternoon,” or “Thanks for calling” are buffer words for your company name. Use buffers when you ask a question too. Just blurting out a question can become offensive. Using a soft buffer before the actual question is an excellent technique to learn. Example, if you need to ask several questions to gain more information, a good buffer might be, “Mrs. Jones, so that we can get you exactly what you need, I’ll need to ask a few questions.” That way the caller or customer is notified, prepared and expects the questions rather than feeling as though you’re bombarding them with one question after another.

Take your time. Remember Telephone Doctor Cardinal Rule – “Rushing threatens callers.” Sure, you may need to take as many calls as possible, but at no time does anyone want you to sacrifice quality for quantity. There are many ways to ask questions that can help move the conversation along.

Stay in control. Sometimes it seems as though a caller can wander off into another world. It’s up to us to get them BACK ON TRACK. There are several ways to do this. One is to tell the caller, “The story about your great-grandmother sounds very interesting, but I know you called with a specific question and I’m eager to help you.” In other words, you’ve acknowledged what they’re wandering off about and yet you’re still in control. Indeed, some calls or situations are more challenging than others. When you learn to stay in control it’s much more effective for all. Enjoy it! And have fun!

7.1 And when all else fails, go back to tip #1.

Nancy Friedman, president of Telephone Doctor Customer Service Training, is a featured Customer Service speaker at Franchise, association, and corporate meetings around the world. A popular TV guest, she has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, CNN, FOX News, Good Morning America and CBS This Morning, as well as hundreds of other radio, television and print outlets, around the world, including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Financial News. The Author of 9 books on her chosen topics, Nancy’s passion to help corporate America improve their communications, is second only to the material she delivers. You can see her books here. For more information, log on to Nancy Friedman’s website www.nancyfriedman.com or call (314) 291-1012. Or you can email her at nancyf@telephonedoctor.com

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In 2011, an American Express survey found that Americans tell an average of 9 people about good experiences and 16 people about poor experiences. Today, just five years later, people may still tell an average of 9 people about good experiences, but if they have a bad experience, they can now tell the entire world via social media. We have all seen the word “viral” tagged to a personal story about bad customer service more often than a good one. At the same time, the millennials and Gen Z who interact primarily through digital communication are becoming your customers and will expect you to be available to them via social media. So the question about social customer service to your business is “Are you ready?” This week’s guest post from Heather, Chief Customer Fanatic and Founder of Customer Fanatixhighlights the opportunity for businesses to get it right or be left behind. Learn more about Heather and Customer Fanatix at the end of this post.

I recently read that live chat has the highest satisfaction levels for any customer service channel, with 73%, compared with 61% for email and 44% for phone. I am not sure how true and up to date this statistic is, but it sure did speak to me.

Just the other day, I had a terrible experience with a highly acclaimed web hosting company. I was not in the situation to be able to call them to resolve my account. So, I used my fall back of clicking the Live Chat button. I thought that they would perform the function I was trying to accomplish, or at least, help me get it done. I was very wrong. The representative on the other end was completely stumped with my request and had to walk me through some complicated steps to get to a partial resolution. Then, I needed to call back six separate times to finally get my issue resolved. I was frustrated, to say the least. Everything is good now, but the process to get here was full of friction. They really just needed to put processes in place to take care of me the first time.

The only reason I did not pull my account is that I put so much time into making it look the way I wanted. The pain of starting over stopped me in my tracks! While I set out to accomplish a task on my terms and the way I needed to do it, I discovered that some of the best companies just do not have the people or processes in place to adequately service customers in nontraditional ways.

According to J.D. Power, 67% of consumers have used a company’s social media channel for their customer service needs. According to Twitter, 60% of leading B2C companies are responding to about 60% of Tweets directed at their service accounts. Even more compelling is that over 95% of consumers say they are influenced by what other people say about companies on social media.

I have to say that I am very new to social customer service, but then, most of us are. Previous to the bumpy journey described above, I was a big fan of web chat for my service needs. I chose chat, since I often have a crazy schedule that include kids screaming in the background.

This week, Apple launched its first Twitter account for customer service. It will use this account to address common support issues. Although none of us really know why they are deciding to make this move now. I am going to be watching from afar to see how this move bodes for this big brand. Will this move continue to put them at the top of highly regarded brands for service or will it wreck it?

Some brands seem to have mastered the social media customer service puzzle.

This issue is so important and the opportunity for Twitter to capitalize on this movement is so great that they put together a playbook for businesses, regarding social media customer service. It is quite good. I imagine that many businesses looking to use social as another means to meet customers where they are, or at least, where they choose to be will enjoy this tool more than once.

After experiencing the friction that I did with one company’s chat blunder, I have to say that I am leery to go the social route for service requests as even going with the chat option turned out to be disappointing. In the end, if customers cannot get what they want to get done the way they want to get it done, those brands who were unable to deliver offline will fall short in front of the world.

For the brands that have been successful in social customer service, they may inspire reluctant customers to give it a try. The biggest selling point is that the personal interactions inherent in social customer service can continue to drive positive relationships with customers.

Positive relationships drive excellent customer service.

Given the speed at which consumers of all ages are taking to social media to get their issues resolved, customer experience and marketing professionals like myself will need to quickly increase our understanding of how this impacts brand loyalty over the long haul.

I would love to hear from anyone brave enough to take the leap and tell their story.

Be Well and Good Luck Tweeting!

Chief Customer Fanatic and Founder, Customer FanatixHeather, a recovering attorney, is a customer experience consultant, trainer and speaker with proven expertise in building Voice of the Customer and Voice of the Employee cultures and acting as catalyst for customer-driven cultural & process improvements. Heather is a frequent author on LinkedIn’s Pulse platform, a blog contributor for Huffington Post and a member and Certified Customer Experience Professional with the Customer Experience Professional’s Association. She is also a Net Promoter Certified Professional.

Heather truly believes that the most effective way to transform customer’s experiences is to transform organizational leaders into people who better relate to and empathize with their teams, use their team’s voices to inform customer needs and partner with their teams to drive cultural and customer-focused organizational improvements.

Heather has a bias toward action, and she enjoys consulting leaders, training teams and speaking to audiences on topics of importance to customers and employees alike.

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Recently in a LinkedIn group, one of the members asked the following question: “The global economy is slowing down, but you’ve been asked to do the impossible: Control costs AND improve customer service experience. How can you do it?” While I commented within the group, LinkedIn limited the space allowed for the response so I wanted to elaborate here.

Here are three low cost ways that have worked for me in improving customer service.

Create a Customer Satisfaction Investigation (CSI) team. Isn’t it criminal to take a customer’s money and then not deliver to meet his expectations? This team, with at least one representative from every department, should meet at least once a week to review customer feedback. Like a CSI team, the purpose of the team is to review all the details of each negative customer experience to see if they can find out why it happened. If you do not have a survey process, ask your employees to document and forward any complaint to the CSI team. For every customer who complains, 26 others didn’t say anything (Lee Resource, Inc.) and simply walked away. No one can afford that kind of customer churn. Once identified, work fast to eliminate the dissatisfier. You cannot begin to satisfy customers until you remove all the potential dissatisfiers. You have got to remove them from negatively affecting future customer experiences.

Continually remind your team of the importance of customer service. One of my favorite quotes is from Samuel Johnson, “People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed.” Day One and Done customer service training is simply not enough. It’s amazing how much of the first day of new hire orientation is spent on defining the rules and restrictions, usually required by the legal department, that, if not followed, will result in termination. While that information is important, consider the overall message you are giving new employees at the end of their first day. Balance the message by describing the empowerment processes that employees can use to exceed customer expectations and offer specific stories when employees went above and beyond for your customers. After onboarding, continue to reinforce that message with customer service tips and stories via email, screensaver messages, and periodic refresher customer service training. As many of the luxury hotel chains and fine dining restaurants known for delivering consistently exceptional service, conduct a fifteen-minute daily briefing that reinforces your brand’s core values and service standards.

Recognize and celebrate those who deliver great customer service. Too often managers focus on identifying an employee’s service deficiencies. These “areas that need improvement” are usually only conveyed to the employee at the annual performance review. Instead celebrate throughout the year the stories of employees who have created WOW moments for their customers. Create a booklet of customer service stories to be distributed on Day One of your onboarding process. Every new employee is a sponge of company information on the first day. Let them soak in the stellar reputation of your company as built by your customers’ perceptions of your employees’ exceptional service. To reinforce that Day One feeling, frequently post or distribute via email the positive customer comments. Send a handwritten thank you note to the home of the individual employees who created a memorable moment for one of your customers. You can be assured they will share proudly that note with their family. If you want your employees to make it a habit to deliver outstanding customer service, you have to make it a habit to thank them when they do.

When you systematically remove the potential dissatisfiers, continually remind your employees of the importance of customer service, and habitually recognize and celebrate the stories of exceptional service you will increase dramatically the value of service as perceived by your customer.

This was originally published as a guest post on Shep Hyken’s customer service blog.

There are only two ways to make a profit in business. One way is to increase sales. The other is to reduce costs. Companies have relied on technology to reeduce one of the most expensive costs in any business – human labor. Banks have replaced tellers with ATM’s, direct deposit and internet banking. Gas stations and supermarkets have moved to credit card readers and scanners, reducing the number of cashiers and eliminating gas attendants and grocery store baggers. Even hotels are experimenting with robots to deliver room service. But in this technological evolution, too many companies are confusing customer services with customer service. Customer services is all about how to speed up the transaction. Businesses have used technology to become more efficient at the process of serving customers.

But being good at customer services does not build customer loyalty. All a competitor has to do is ante up with the same technology. Now even non-related businesses are looking to take revenue from each other. Where banks might have been the first to offer self-service options and debit cards, stores now offer ATM’s and their own credit card services, stealing fees and interest revenue from banks. In fact, how loyal would you be to your bank if it started to raise fees for its services? When was the last time you actually walked into a bank and interacted with a teller? Businesses may have reduced labor costs by offering hi-tech customer services, but by reducing human interaction with their customers, they inadvertently have jeopardized customer loyalty. As a result, customer services may help to keep customers, but rarely does it increase sales.

Walt Disney had the best formula for boosting sales, “Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it they will want to come back and see you do it again and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.” Great companies will always remember that despite advances in technology, customer loyalty must be earned by nurturing a genuine emotional connection.

Focus on the interaction, not the transaction. Define ways to personalize the customer experience. Restaurants that take reservations usually ask the question, “Are you celebrating a special occasion this evening?” Many will offer a complimentary dessert for an anniversary celebration. But the best create a wow moment by personalizing the menu header with the couple’s names and delivering that dessert with Happy Anniversary and their names written in chocolate on the rim of the plate. Of all the pictures taken that evening of the food, which do you think is featured and forever immortalized on Facebook for their friends to see and like? And how many friends have gone to that restaurant hoping to have that same kind of experience?

Personalizing the customer experience can be as simple as using the customer’s name. Simple, but simply not done. Think back to the last several times when you were a customer. You hand a credit card with your name printed right on it to the cashier. Yet the last five times you used your credit card, how many times did the cashier use your name in giving it back to you? Rarely, if at all. An opportunity to embrace you, as a customer, is lost.

The sales adage that people buy from people they know, like, and trust should be your customer service mantra. If I were a retailer, I’d use the technology to make sure that the card swipe info would post the customer’s name on the mini screen in front of the cashier. I’d educate every cashier to look at the screen or the credit card and then look back to the customer to establish eye contact (trust), smile (likeability) and sincerely say, “Mr. Customer’s Name, thank you for shopping at Name of Company. We certainly appreciate it.” That small wow would make a big difference in having that customer return again and again.

So don’t confuse customer services with customer service. Real customer service is all about how to enhance the human interaction. As Shep Hyken has said, “The greatest technology in the world hasn’t replaced the ultimate relationship building tool between a customer and a business – the human touch.”

This week’s guest post is from leadership consultant and keynote speaker Bill Hogg. I have been an avid reader of his blog where he writes about “the critical relationship between leadership, employee engagement and delivering an exceptional customer experience as a competitive advantage.” So I’m honored that he has offered to share his customer service insight here. If you commit to following consistently his four steps of service, you will Deliver the World’s Best Customer Experience. You can find out more about Bill at the end of his post.

Providing exceptional service is the ultimate goal. However, many organizations limit their teams’ ability to provide the type of service they want to deliver because rules and policies get in the way.

Each and every person in your organization has the opportunity to create a positive impression on your customers — to impact their experience and potentially convert them from a lukewarm satisfied customer to a red-hot loyal customer. Here is a simple 4-step formula to help your team remember how to GIVE exceptional customer service each and every time they interact with customers.

4 Steps to Provide Exceptional Customer Service

In my experience as a leadership change consultant, the following four guidelines can help you effectively engage with your customers in all situations:

Greet: Greet every customer with a smile, make eye contact. This lets them know you see them and are ready to help. Asking “how may I help” rather than waiting for people to approach will create a positive experience. Greet your customers in a friendly and approachable manner and adjust your tone according to their needs — your greeting would be different for a customer asking for information versus one who might have a problem and is a bit upset.In every case, you want to let the customer know that you are ready to listen and respond to their needs — and help build long-term loyalty.

Interact: Listen carefully to each customer’s request. Are they looking for help? Do they have a complaint? Be careful not to jump to conclusions about their needs, and never take their comments personally. Remember, customers often don’t express their needs clearly and ask their real question. So make sure you listen for the real question behind the question.

Choose your attitude — be courteous, friendly and polite. A positive, caring attitude will sooth even the angriest customer and will turn a satisfied customer into a red-hot loyalist. Help them — make it easy for them to accomplish their outcome faster, easier and more conveniently — and you will create long-term loyalty.

Verify: After you have listened to understand their needs, make sure your actions address their opportunity or concern? It is often a good idea to confirm with them what you have heard and then whether the solution you propose will address their need — before taking action. For example, if they ask your closing time — what they might really want to know is “what the latest time they can receive service”. Or if their preferred brand is not available, you could ask how often they would be purchasing, and potentially offer to order the product for them.

Little will be accomplished by rushing an answer or hurrying off to solve an issue they don’t have. There is little value in taking action that the customer doesn’t need.

Express Thanks: Always say “thank you” — it makes all the difference. Customers often express thanks when they receive help from a sales person or change from a cashier, but it really should be your team expressing thanks to your customers for their business. Letting your customer know their business is appreciated is an essential part of making them feel welcome and valued.

No two customers are ever alike, so train your team to follow these 4 simple steps to GIVE exceptional customer service: Greet, Interact, Verify and Express Thanks.

Why Your People Need Guidelines, Not Policies

To give exceptional service, it’s important for your organization to provide your team with guidelines, not strict policies and rules, if you want them to create memorable customer service experiences. Rules and policies can be restrictive and sound scripted, and your frontline service providers need flexibility with how they interact with customers in order to provide the best service possible.

Rules are an essential part of any business. Rules are necessary to ensure we make intentional decisions. Rules are written to make sure people are treated equally and consistently. While there’s nothing wrong with this in principle, there are always going to be situations where a certain degree of flexibility is essential because people are unique. The way they react to situations is also unique, and if you’re trying to offer great customer service, you have to be flexible enough to respond to their needs.

So, apart from rules that tell an employee what they can or can’t do, it’s also essential that employees have guidelines as well. These guidelines will provide the boundaries that allow your team to make appropriate decisions for the benefit of the customer — and the organization — without having to seek a supervisor’s approval every time.

What changes to your approach could you make that allow your team to give exceptional service?

Allow common sense to prevail in all service situations

Empower your frontline team members, and give them a reasonable amount of authority to act

Get rid of the canned responses and processes that impede your employees ability to provide personalized and effective service

While rules are a necessary evil in some situations, flexible guidelines make it easier for your team to give exceptional customer service and help your customers get the service and experience they expect.

Bill works with individuals and organizations to stimulate change — that excelerates passion, productivity and performance! For over 30 years, Bill has been the go to guy when the world’s most recognized brands are faced with challenges that require change — to improve bottom line results. Bill takes no prisoners and his clients love him for it.

I’m honored to provide this guest blog for Bill, a guy who will certainly leave a legacy for helping leaders develop the “world’s best customer experiences.” Which begs a broad question for all of us, what will our legacies be?

Charles Dudley Warner, likely crafted the phrase “everyone talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” Sadly, when it comes to transforming customer experiences there are parallels to Warner’s observation – since much is tried and far less is accomplished. Take a Forrester Research finding that 92% of companies have customer experience elevation on their strategic priority list and juxtapose that with data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) showing customer satisfaction is approaching a 9-year low. You see the problem.

There are a lot of well-intentioned leaders who are not “ALL-IN” when it comes to transforming customer experiences and I suspect the difference between “investment” and “commitment” may account for so many failed efforts. While I have had the good fortune to consult with a wide swath of senior leaders, several years of interaction at Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) highlights the value of declaring, defining and fully committing to (not simply investing in) customer obsession. These and many other lessons are chronicled in my new book Driven to Delight: Delivering World-Class Customer Experience the Mercedes-Benz Way. For our purpose lets hone in on a few key takeaways:

Declare It Now – Have you determined what you want your leadership legacy to be? Will a portion of that legacy reflect your role in engaging your team and your customers? Leadership guru, John Maxwell, suggests that each of us will be remembered “in one sentence, so write it now.” The CEO of Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) Steve Cannon, has been very public about his legacy. In magazines such as Automotive News and in appropriate discussions with stakeholders, Steve repeatedly and resoundingly declares “customer experience will be my legacy.”

Live-In to Your Declaration – The problem with publicly declaring a legacy is that it places pressure on you to make choices in accord with it. Heightened focus on those choices occurs when we select accountability partners and when we seek mentors to guide us on our path. That’s where following thought-leaders like Bill comes in!

Inspire Others – Harry Hynekamp, general manager of customer experience at Mercedes-Benz USA, notes “customer experience transformation it hard work. There is no end point and it doesn’t spontaneously combust. It takes stewardship and dedication.” Since customer centric success comes from mobilizing people, improving processes, and integrating technological/human solutions, communication is a key requirement of leaders. Legacies take shape when those leaders willingly and transparently tell stories of success and setback along their purposeful journey.

Measure & Celebrate – One of my favorite questions is “how do you know?” How do you know if you are creating one of the worlds best customer experiences? How do you know if you are living your legacy? By setting signposts in advance and defining key performance indicators, we truly can gauge progress. At Mercedes-Benz the aspiration was to fulfill their brand promise of “best or nothing” not only in their automotive innovation and safety but also in their customer experience. Progress is measured by internal metrics and number 1 finishes on the American Customer Satisfaction Index and the J D Power Sales Satisfaction Index.

Give It Away – To maximize legacy, one has to magnify one’s influence. The best calculation of influence I have run across is the multiplication of scope and effort. Influence goes up as the number of people you affect increases and as you enhance the effort you dedicate to them. When it comes to the complexities of improving customer experiences, it takes enterprise-wide scope. The more we volunteer our “lessons learned” and “knowledge gained” the more we influence others. In turn, the more we mobilize our organization to improve the live of customers.

Lest, you think the concept of legacy sounds a tad self-serving or grandiose, in truth we all leave one! Some people design their careers to maximize their lasting positive impact others leave their legacy to chance. I hope you will consider a deeper dive into what it takes to create a thoughtful legacy that drives world-class customer experiences. In so doing, I further hope you will set a target like being Driven to Delight – every customer, every time – no excuses!

Joseph A. Michelli, Ph.D., C.S.P., is an internationally sought-after speaker, author, and organizational consultant who transfers his knowledge of exceptional business practices in ways that develop joyful and productive workplaces with a focus on the total customer experience. His insights encourage leaders and frontline workers to grow and invest passionately in all aspects of their lives. Find out more about him at josephmichelli.com . Follow him on Twitter @josephmichelli

Dr. Michelli has graciously offered a sizable discount, free shipping, and an autographed copy of the book to the readers of this blog post. Simply click on the book cover above or here and enter the promo code VIP at checkout.